Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Tuesday July 12, 2011 @10:05AM
from the dont-give-him-a-white-bronco dept.

kaptink writes "Julian Assange is back in court today to appeal his extradition to Sweden. So far the court has heard more on the incompatibility between UK and Sweden sex crime laws and that the arrest warrant used was essentially flawed. — 'Ben Emmerson QC told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that the European arrest warrant under which Assange is being held was flawed because it failed to provide a "fair, accurate and proper" description of the alleged sexual misconduct.'"

The girl that we had willing sex with, decides days LATER that she may or may not be so willing after all, and goes and asks for advice.

a conservative (swedish) politician (with ties to u.s. backed companies) intervenes, and a prosecutor in a DIFFERENT area takes up the case that the other prosecutor has DROPPED, and conjures up a new sex crime by stating 'continuing after a condom broke constitutes rape'.

with that fantastic, politically-driven propped-up legal interpretation, probably 30% or more of the world's male population are now classified as rapists. yes. if your condom popped out in the last moments before your ejaculation, you are a rapist.

how could you stop, you ask ? well, thats not the prosecutor's problem apparently. you may need to go to tibet and train 10 years in a mountain temple to be able to control your dick, in last stages of pre-ejaculation maybe. prosecutor doesnt care. he had to invent a sex crime, and he did.

well done sweden. good for you. you were one of the few countries in which corporate backed conservative politicians didnt start to screw the basic human rights over. now, you are one.

My understanding of the charges is that Assange had sex with two women on separate occasions. Both times the condom broke. Under Swedish law, your partner can demand that you to get tested for STDs and other diseases in this case. Assange refused. Now this isn't a law in the UK. Is this malicious prosecution? I don't know. But let's not let details of what happened get in the way of your uninformed rant.

Based on the - undisputed - version of events that has come out in Sweden, Assange had consensual sex with the first woman who subsequently attended a social function accompanying him. Odd behaviour for a rape victim. He then had sex with another woman, and when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police. Also undisputed is the fact that the first woman had previously written an article suggesting such a course of action to get revenge on any man she felt had cheated her.

(I have no knowledge of the actual facts and am only responding to the facts as stated here. I take no position on the accuracy of the factual foundation to my comment.) It sounds as if Assange's real mistake was one we all make at one time or another: Failure to properly review a woman's published materials prior to engaging in a sexual relationship with her.

That is exactly true. We have many great laws here, but this one is one that is fucked up.. It basically does give the right for girls to complain about the sex several days later, just because they did not like it. It's a dangerous situation for every men.

is there someone in their right mind justifying people complaining about sex, DAYS later it happened in a consentual fashion ? have sex today willingly, decide its rape tomorrow.

Yes, this is the politically correct stance in Sweden today. ALL High-ranking politicians call them selves feminist and will -at least in public - subscribe to the view that a woman never lies about being raped, and that the woman was raped if she at any point in time decides that she was raped.

When in Sweden he should ask the police for advice himself. Tell them he was asked to provide sexual services in return for lodging, that this wasn't discussed in advance, and at 3am he didn't feel he had too many options other than put up with it. He was tired and not familiar with the area or country even. He should ask the police if he was sexually exploited or the victim of any other crime.

You can withdraw consent at any point during sex, but you can't withdraw consent afterwards. Which is really the crux of the matter, the women didn't consider it to be rape until after consulting with police, which makes it really fishy that there was anything that Assange did that was criminal. Sure it was stupid to sleep with a radical feminist, but nothing that could reasonably be foreseen as criminal.

You might want to re-read my post. She consented at the time, and changed her mind after the fact. This new story about her withdrawing consent mid coitus is a new story, and it really begs the question as to why the story has now changed to that degree. I don't know which version is correct.

At this point, I doubt either woman has sufficient credibility to be a witness without some substantiating evidence that anything illegal happened. And them hanging out afterwards is not likely to lend credibility to an

I'm not using that argument, but I think it requires a good faith effort to stop as soon as possible. Which usually will be pretty immediate. Not several minutes later. But, you do have a point, in that absolutely immediately isn't necessarily realistic in all cases.

Im willing to state that your opinions on the matter has about as much influence on the actual facts of the case as does mine; that is, none whatsoever.

The fact is that he is being tried for involuntary intercourse, which is being termed rape. Whether or not you think the law is reasonable is irrelevant, especially when it comes to his extradition. If Assange can show that he attempted to comply with the woman's wishes, that would be a matter for the actual trial; at the moment the fight is over whether h

In real life, there are two kinds of men: those who stop promptly when their partner tells them to, and those who very obviously don't. The latter are the ones who find themselves accused of rape (though not nearly often enough).

In real life, there are two kinds of women: those who asked their partner to stop promptly during sex, and those who very obviously haven't. The latter are the ones that find themselves falsely accusing men of rape (far too often).

Indeed, unless you were in that bedroom, you really can't say what happened. We can look at the surrounding evidence and determine that the "rape victim" had premeditated this false rape scheme by posting it online. We can also see that she did not immediately claim she had b

Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.

You know, basically all industrialized Western nations consider it rape when somebody continues having sex with a partner who's withdrawn consent. This isn't some Sweden-only thing.

And "gun to the head" is a very rare rape scenario. Stuff like The Implication [youtube.com] is a lot more common than that.

Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.

Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.

Yup. There's a large number of morons who will tell you the "facts" of this case—which upon examination, turn out to be the defense lawyers' version! And then there was the time back in November or so when some

No, it wouldn't count as rape then. Rape is purely about consent. Consent was given and provided that he wasn't knowingly spreading the disease there's nothing that can or should be done about it.

While we're at it, what about all the women that trick men into getting them pregnant by claiming to be on the pill? Following your logic that's rape as well, which is just absurd. If you have sex without a condom, STIs and pregnancy are real risks. Claiming that it's different if the risk turns out to be high isn't really legitimate.

So true. Assange is still is denial about having been raped by at least one of these women if not both. One of them publish how to hurt men against their will using sex. Clearly she knew what she was doing, and Assange is the rape victim in the case. Sure that is an outrageous statement, but so is claiming that a published feminist running an international seminar claiming that she was raped and didn't realize it after having published that you could screw men this way.
You shouldn't limit your descri

Under Swedish law, doodski, one cannot bring charges against another until the discovery process has been finished and a proper charge been levied against the supposed culprit --- something which has yet been done as the Svensk prosecutor has yet to pass on all the ICQ messages from Ardin to Assange's defense attorneys, along with other legally pertinent information.

Under Swedish law, a large number of things are considered to be a sex crime. The beauty of this if there really is a smear campaign going on is that Assange will now forever be associated with a sex crime that would not be considered an offence in most, if not all, countries apart from Sweden.
As for the title of the Slashdot article, it's misleading. He's not in court for a "sex crimes appeal", he is in court for an extradition appeal.

My bad. In retrospect I probably didnt do him any favours wording it like that cause your right, three of the four 'possible' charges arent really sex crimes in any rational society. And the forth is dubious at best. Better than 'Rape Appeal' though.

Under Swedish law, the discovery process must first be finished before any charges can be brought -- which has yet to be accomplished by the Svensk prosecutors.

Your comments are excellent, LizardKing, but that must be added. More importantly, they Brits should be far more concerned with the total compromising of their government and police forces by the Rupert Murdoch crime machine, and begin using all their resources to extradite Murdoch and his co-conspirators.

Don't be silly. He is every bit as guilty as Dominique Strauss Kahn. Just because Julian Assange, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, Moamarr Quadaffi, and many other enemies of the U.S. became accused rapists shortly after crossing the U.S. government doesn't mean these are obvious CIA setups to publicly discredit them in the interests of the U.S. That's just a coincidence.

The CIA doesn't do bad stuff like that. And if you say otherwise, you're obviously nuts. So stop talking crazy and just a

Don't be silly. It's just a coincidence. Accusing someone of rape isn't one of the fastest and easiest ways to publicly discredit them and destroy their reputation in the press and among their supporters. No one would ever think of using that to their own political ends. Stop all this crazy talk.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me in four similar cases, all taking place within weeks or months after the accused crossed the U.S. government, one of which has already been shown to be a set-up--well, shame on the the sucker who thinks that's all just an incredible coincidence.

Everyone who crosses the U.S. is suddenly a rapist. And an army of suckers like you will swallow that fiction no matter how many times they use it. They've gotten so brazen now that they're staging their arrests within DAYS of the

Yes, and the CIA is doing a bang-up job with Strauss Kahn. Whats that? Their defense and primary witness' credibility is heavily in question? Wow, wonder how the CIA screwed that up.

All the information is pointing to a maid who was trying to extort a ton of money out of Strauss Kahn, and he has already been released from house arrest. Theyre currently trying to figure out whether they even have a case left. CIA secret op, indeed.

The CIA didn't screw up Strauss Kahn. It was actually a rather masterful piece of work. The accomplished both their goals with flying colors. Today a pro-American puppet is in charge of the IMF and Sarkozy is likely to win the presidency. The CIA has screwed up plenty of operations in the past, but this most certainly wasn't one of them.

It was never about convicting Strauss Kahn. It was about discrediting him.

So, if Strauss Kahn wins the presidency, and this discussion resurfaces, will you then claim that its even more brilliant, because he will be an ineffective president?

The way you are arguing, no matter what reality and all evidence shows, you can continue to claim that its a conspiracy.

And Im not trying to claim the CIA couldnt do something like that (despite it being incredibly illegal, and not something the CIA would do inside of our country); but when you have no evidence whatsoever, and reality in fact

He won't even get nominated to run. He's finished. That was one of the two goals.

As for evidence, as I told another poster, I'll try to get the CIA to send you a signed confession. Because barring that, you're either going to have to wait 60 years for them to declassify the details, or accept that there are just too many coincidences here to dismiss it all as pure chance.

Of course, we must all agree with you, especially since (and this is no joke!) the recently reappointed director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, also happens to be the grandnepher of Richard Bissell, the chief of the CIA's Directorate of Plans who was fired by President Kennedy, who was later to be murdered in Dallas in 1963.

Strauss Kahn had been openly criticizing the value of the U.S. dollar in the weeks leading up to his arrest and had just pulled ahead of the pro-U.S. Sarkozy in the French presidential race. Omar was raising funds for the Muslim Brotherhood, in their effort to secure a place in the new Egyptian government.

Another angle on the Dominique Strauss Kahn case: They may also have been targeting New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who just happened to be making moves to prosecute the banking giants under New York law. By having the case blow up in his face, they probably succeeded at discrediting Schneiderman as well.

More reasonable (but still off in conspiracy land) when Strauss Kahn talked up Special Drawing Rights to replace US dollars for reserves and for oil trading - http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm [cnn.com]. Such a move would crater the US economy (yes even further). Saddam

"Such a move would crater the US economy " If the US economy gets cratered so will every other economic system on the planet that is more complicated than using goats and virgins for as currency. Isn't it a simple and orderly world when everyone can blame the US for every single fucking problem? It offers absolution to everyone there by stifling any real efforts to actually address their own problems. If you believe the world can dump the dollar without bankrupting themselves you are living in a dream world

The point is that this is what Strauss Kahn was calling for [guardian.co.uk] right before his arrest on trumped-up charges. And literally within days of a new IMF chief being elected, the prosecutor in the case (who had previously made a public arrest and called the case rock solid) suddenly drops the case and admits that the only witness is a joke. If you think that's all just a coincidence, well then, what can I say?

Which is completely irrelevant to the US not liking the idea of a transition away from trading oil in US dollars and from using US dollars as reserves.

And also completely unrelated to what I claimed which had nothing to do with manufacturing or debt to GDP ratios and so on.

There's certainly no blaming of the US - it's the only place that doesn't get any of the blame since they aren't the ones choosing to use another country's currency for world trade. Your the only one who mentioned the US being a cause or

Being the reserve currency does provide great benefits but this fact has provided stability and is so embedded in the world economic model that changing to something else would be catastrophic for not only the world economy but also for the world diplomatic relations. This issue would prompt the US to really start using their every bit of leverage they posses to prevent this from happening. Classifying the change as "restructuring" is like describing violent genocide as mere population restructuring. This i

For the first line, yes the US dollar has provided stability, the problem is it is now not doing so. The dollar's devaluing is pushing prices higher and pumping inflation everywhere else (there should be inflation in the US - that's what happens when you borrow lots, but it is being seen elsewhere instead). The rest of world isn't going to put up with that forever, hence the moves at moving to "currency baskets" and so on.

Here is another excellent article [guardian.co.uk] on exactly what Strauss Kahn was calling for (and why it scared the U.S. government so much). Of course, with their puppet in place as IMF head now, this plan has been quickly dropped.

OK, fanboy: excuse this one. This is the description of what happened *according to Assange's own lawyer*:

The appellant [Assange]'s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was "rough and impatient" They lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom She did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration AA tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.

But crucially, Emmerson said, there was no lack of consent sufficient for the unlawful coercion allegation, because "after a while Assange asked what AA was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. AA told him that she wanted him to put a condom on before he entered her. Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found her."

Women have always expected men to be mind-readers, but that doesn't constitute rape.

It's very sad that bullshit like this gets voted up on slashdot. I suppose in this boys club wimmin are not someone you bother to empathize with.

This story is not about women who willingly sleep with a man, and afterwards claim he made them. It's a about a man who gets women into his bed, willingly, and then does things to them they don't consent to.

In one case, a condom broke, she tried to grab a new condom but couldn't because he held her down. For this, he may be charged with some sort of sexual assault.

She never said "Stop" or "Don't", and had previously said "Yeah, let's do it." That is consent. You can withdraw consent during sex, but only if you SAY YOU DON'T WANT TO CONTINUE - which she never did.

It's malicious prosecution, and the fact that it came to light about a day after the WikiLeaks fiasco should be all you need to know in order to figure out it was staged and coerced prosecution of a man who has committed no crime.

What kind of nonsense is this? People don't endure rapes and sexual assualts; they suffer them. Enduring someone who is poor in bed, and not articulating what you do/do not want them to do, does not constitute a sexual assault.

This case is groundless unless the alleged victim had a serious reason for "not articulating" herself properly, that is, fear for her safety if she did so. That would make the case a sexual assault, and that is a common feature of assaults. Being "badgered" into sex is not grounds enough.

Rape laws are for victims who did not consent to sex with another individual before or during the act. They are not for people who afterwards decided that they shouldn't have consented. It's unfortunate that a case of the latter kind should become so prominent, to the detriment of victims in the former, far more serious cases.

so, she didnt enjoy it, but she endured it, because HE ENJOYED it. and you are, along with the morons who modded your idiotic post up, are actually jus tifying the charges against the man on those grounds. not only that, you uttered out another idiotic bullshit saying 'if swedes have laws agains that, good for them'.

no. good for you. well done. as of this moment, you basically practically classified 50% or more of sexual relations in between 1 or more participants as rape.

> Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs.

> Miss A said Assange was still staying in her flat but they were not having sex because he had "exceeded the limits of what she felt she could accept"

And anyway, that is not the incident for which he may be charged with rape.

While I cannot improve upon your most excellent comments, outstanding unity100, please allow me to add that all those perps and crooks going after Wikileaks' Julian Assange are connected, financially, in one way or another with the Swedish publishing people, the Bonnier family (Ardin, their shysters, Borgstrom and the other clown, as well as all the original publication rags involved --- basically the Swedish equivalent to the Rupert Murdoch machine).

For some reason the UK seems to roll over when it comes to extradition warrants. Someone will probably try to blame the EU (as TFA seems to) but it does not affect other EU countries. For example there was a case last week where some German men were found guilty of various war crimes while they were stationed at concentration camps in Italy, but none of them will be extradited. Germany only extradites people with their consent.

And the law would probably not pass constitutional review. E.g. Austria does not extradite it's own citizens, nor does it extradite if there is the risk of the capital punishment. Btw, if I got that right, the most stringent view has Portugal that does not recognize life sentences and does not extradite if there is a risk of such a sentence.

There's a specific provision in German constitution that permits that a German citizen is extradited, through very strict processes, but it's possible. It's indeed unlike just about every European country. It's a legacy of post WWII, to allow for German war criminals to be extraded and judged.

Most other European countries simply don't extradite their citizens (I'm not sure about the UK, actually: does it extradite its subjects or does it just wait for the CIA to kidnap them?) AND they don't extradite anyone

the only thing that I suspect in all of this is that Assange is an asshole, and rips condoms on purpose. Beyond that I don't care about him, but his work with the Wikileaks is very important regardless and the materials they publish are excellent and need to be revealed.

Thats what usually happens when you give a superpower a black eye. Im all for truth and justice and liberty for all, but hte fact of the matter is, when you piss people off, they forget all that stuff. Im sure Assange is guilty of something, the rape thing is a bit of a strech, but again thats what you get for playing women too. None of this stuff about Assange surprises me because he comes of as a grandiose asshole of the 1st order.

Well none, obviously. What would the U.S. even have to gain from Assange's arrest? It's not like he was threatening them in any way. Besides, the CIA doesn't do bad stuff like frame people. Only other government's intelligence agencies do bad stuff like that.

I have no doubt that the CIA has the capability to orchestrate something like this. My doubt is that they'd bother. Assange is basically irrelevant. He's part of the bread and circuses of government - leak some trivial secrets, sack some junior government employees, and make it look like you're working hard. He hasn't done anything that would make him worth the CIA spending time and money on.

Lest we forget, Wikileaks seriously embarrassed the US government not so long ago. I think the purpose of this is less to punish Assange and more pour encourager les autres (or more accurately, discourager) - from having anything to do with leaking information.

Exposing the nasty secret memos of the State Department (many of which have and will cause serious diplomatic problems for years to come) and also exposing serious weaknesses in their security, among other offenses. That's no laughing matter. People have been assassinated over MUCH less.

That isn't how you do it. You have a relatively low level person with access to information supply the fake information. You then have them spend the next year in a jail cell. I doubt it would be that hard to find someone that would willingly play the roll of the patsy.

The difference is that back when most people were supposedly ignorant and had little means to access information, there was a real divide created in the country between supporters and detractors of Dreyfus. Today only a tiny proportion of any Western country cares about any stance but the one promoted by government and the popular media.

We think that the Internet etc. make us more free, but the wealth of modern methods of transmitting information simply means being flooded with propaganda more effectively t